Line #6 YMMV/DARQ - TV Tropes


1	* BreatherLevel: The Tower DLC is one, as its the only level in the game that [[spoiler: contains no actual enemies and consequently no way to actually die]]. Not even when [[spoiler:you have to ''cut your own head off'' to proceed]].
2	* EventObscuringCamera: One of the scariest sequences in the game requires you to solve a fairly simple puzzle where you have to move a peg to the center of a rotating disc maze [[spoiler:while the camera unlocks itself and constantly rotates around 360 degrees to show you the monster slowly approaching from beyond the fourth wall, making it difficult to see the puzzle for more than a few seconds at a time as well as putting you under intense pressure.]]
3	* ItsShortSoItSucks: The main criticism leveled at the game is that it's too short, capable of being beaten in 1-3 hours depending on your puzzle-solving skills and whether you look for all the hidden pages or not. In response, the developer announced that [[https://www.pcgamer.com/au/horror-puzzler-darq-is-getting-multiple-free-dlcs-later-this-year/ the game would be receiving multiple additional levels as free DLC later in 2019]]. They ended up being delayed, but "The Tower" was released in March 2020 and "The Crypt" in December.
4	* NightmareFuel: As you'd expect from a game set in a series of inescapable nightmares, ''DARQ'' has tons of it.
5	** At the end of the Cogs stage, [[spoiler:the lampshade head creatures you snuck past earlier come screaming up the (vertical) passage you'd just closed and begin banging on it]].
6	** If you turn the light on in the storeroom at the Theatre without [[spoiler:finding and putting on the puppet mask, all the puppets suddenly revealed by the light come to life and pounce on you at once]].
7	** The terrifying sequence in the Train dream where you have to solve a simple rotating maze puzzle [[spoiler:while [[EventObscuringCamera the camera rotates around to show you the monster slowly coming down the hallway towards you from beyond the fourth wall]], getting closer and closer with every rotation, while also making it hard to see the puzzle]].
8	** After an entire game of slow-paced, atmospheric, stealth-based puzzle solving, [[spoiler:the Caves level's [[UnexpectedGameplayChange frantic action-packed]] EscapeSequence]] will surely get your pulse racing.
9	** The primary objective of the Tower DLC dream is to find enough severed, blindfolded heads to [[CrueltyIsTheOnlyOption attach to a torture machine in order to make them scream loud enough to break down a wall]]. Even with all the freakish BodyHorror surrealism in the game up to now, this is taking it to another level. And it gets even worse when [[spoiler:the only way to get the 5th head you need is to ''cut off Lloyd's own and hook it up to the machine as well!'']]
10	** After you solve the rotating discs puzzle in the Crypt, you sent Lloyd[[spoiler:'s severed head]] back through the passages to get out of the puzzle room, only for a monster to scamper along the bottom of the screen ''right by you.'' A pretty standard JumpScare by this stage, but it's clearly getting to Lloyd, who starts whimpering in panic, particularly as [[spoiler:he's still just as disembodied head at this stage]]. He's reduced to a fit of whimpering at the end of the nightmare as well, when you smash your way back into the apartment, [[spoiler:still trapped in the coffin you locked yourself in to reunite your head and body]] as the screen slowly fades to black.

Context YMMV / DARQ